spoil

Verb

1. (archaic, transitive) To strip (someone who has been killed or defeated) of arms or armour.
2. (archaic, transitive) To strip or deprive (someone) of possessions; to rob, despoil.
3. (ambitransitive, archaic) To plunder, pillage (a city, country etc.).
4. (obsolete, transitive) To carry off (goods) by force; to steal.
5. (transitive) To ruin; to damage in such a way as to make undesirable or unusable.
6. (transitive) To ruin the character of, by overindulgence; to coddle or pamper to excess.
7. (intransitive) To go bad; to become sour or rancid; to decay.
8. (transitive) To render (a ballot) invalid by deliberately defacing.
9. (transitive) To prematurely reveal major events or the ending of (a story etc.); to ruin (a surprise) by exposing ahead of time as a spoiler.
10. To reduce the lift generated by an airplane or wing by deflecting air upwards, usually with a spoiler.
11. (intransitive) To be very eager (for something).

Noun

1. Plunder taken from an enemy or victim.
2. (archaic) The act of taking plunder from an enemy or victim; spoliation, pillage, rapine.
3. (uncountable) Material (such as rock or earth) removed in the course of an excavation, or in mining or dredging. Tailings. Such material could be utilised somewhere else.

Pronounced as (IPA)

/spɔɪl/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: spoilen

In summary

From Middle English spoilen, spuylen, borrowed from Old French espoillier, espollier, espuler, from Latin spoliāre (“pillage, ruin, spoil”).

Synonyms

ruin

pamper

damage

destroy

rot

mar

corrupt

plunder

indulge

decay

waste

coddle

go bad

loot

impair

wreck

injure

decompose

booty

putrefy

harm

botch

deteriorate

frustrate

defile

pollute

mutilate

mess up

foil

make bad

pillage

bungle

thwart

corrode

vitiate

mangle

devastate

blind

rape

baffle

dote

contaminate

cross

deflower

scotch

kill

🔪🩸👤

ravage

despoil

queer

blight